This chapter explores the creation of a narrative of ‘isolation’ between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the presentation of rural communities in Scotland, Wales and Ireland as passive and isolated from the cut and thrust of the metropolis. This narrative trope can be found in examples of travel writing and eth…[Read more]

The Great Eastern Railway Company’s viaduct in East London was one of the earliest, and most substantial, railway structures in London, transporting huge quantities of goods and people entering and leaving central London. Rather than considering the official use of the viaduct, however, this chapter will focus on the unofficial, parallel uses of t…[Read more]

This PhD thesis has used building recording techniques, documentary research and oral history testimonies to explore how concepts of the modern and new between the 1870s and 1930s shaped the urban built environment, through the study of a particular kind of infrastructure that was developed to meet the needs of expanding cities at this time – s…[Read more]

This PhD thesis has used building recording techniques, documentary research and oral history testimonies to explore how concepts of the modern and new between the 1870s and 1930s shaped the urban built environment, through the study of a particular kind of infrastructure that was developed to meet the needs of expanding cities at this time – s…[Read more]